Major cognitive developments are unlikely to happen instantaneously.
Consequently, children must frequently pass through periods of being "in
between" genuine understanding and failure to understand. The current literatures
on false belief understanding and object permanence largely fail to recognize
the importance of such in-between states of understanding. Recent philosophical
accounts of belief also fail to make sufficient room for such in-between
states. An approach based on Ryle's (1949) account of belief is recommended
and is compared with some other approaches, including the competence/performance
approach and contextualist approaches.

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